A people’s movement on achieving
sustainable disaster mitigation and community development

About Subarnarekha Suraksha Sena
Subarnarekha Suraksha Sena is a civilian corps consisting of
individuals, institutions, organizations who are directly or
indirectly affected by river ‘Subarnareknarekha’and have taken
vow to protect themselves and the people in the river basin from
severe flood that comes almost every year. It works on issues
concerning preparedness, relief and rehabilitation during flood
and going to take up advocacy activities on term strategy for
flood control, which is a major cause of poverty in the area of
north Balasore. It certainly has a development approach for the
people of the area for whom the river plays a vital role in
their life but with an activist overtone. The reason behind
activism is to bring a halt to the step-motherly attitude of the
government of the land towards the issue and development
approach forms the part of the people’s responsibility to work
towards a sustainable solution by involving in the appropriate
platform that has been availed to them

Genesis
The river ‘Subarnarekha’ originates from Chhotnagpur hill of
Jharkhand (the then Bihar State) and enters Balasore district
near Olmara of Jaleswar block. Except some small strips of
embankments the river is mostly without embankments. The river
falls in Bay of Bengal near Kirtania of Bhograi block. During
flood, large areas of Jaleswar, Bhograi and Baliapal Basta,
Balasore Sadar blocks of Balasore district and a small pocket of
Rrasgovindpur block of Mayurbhanj districts are affected
perennially by floods in the river Suvernarekha. Due to the
heavy rain on 4th, 5th, and 6th July 2007 in the region, the
water level of the Subarnarekha went up beyond its danger line.
As a result the area was flooded. The flood was so severe which
the people say was unprecedented and never seen in last 50
years. The flood took 21 lives, destroyed thousands of houses,
washed away kharif crop in thousands of hectors and caused
devastation to lives of lacks of people in the areas.The flood
was an eye opener for the people of the region. It was certainly
a wakeup call for every concerned individuals to come under one
platform i.e. Subarnarekha Suraksha Sena to work on the
longstanding issue affecting their life.

In 1999 there was a severe flood like this when UNNAYAN a local
NGO in the area got itself engaged in rescue, relief and
rehabilitation work during the flood. While distributing relief
to the flood affected people of a particular village, i.e,
Gadasahi Baliapal under Jaleswar Block, the villagers came up
with request to construct an embankment near their village which
had been a long standing demand of the people, without having a
sympathetic view of the govt. The volunteers of UNNAYAN took up
the challenge and organized the people of around 20 villages
which are badly affected due to non-existent of this embankment.
After month long massive campaign it was Oct 29th when aound 10,
000 people gathered near the village and though voluntary
Shramdaan the people constructed the 2and half km embankment was
constructed in one day. Suvernarekha Surakshya Manch took birth
on that day.
After the recent flood the people in the region again felt the
need of such peoples organisation for flood protection and
various other flood related issues and Suvarnarekha Surakhya
Sena was formed who jumped in to the relief and rescue operation
in the flood hit areas in the Suvarnarekha basin.

What it stands for
The river ‘Subarnarekha’ does not only represent the river but
means a lot more than that. We can call it a civilization. From
time immemorial, it has been the lifeline of the people of the
north Orissa. It has also become the death line when it
submerges major areas of Balasore like Bhogarai, Baliapal, Basta,
Jaleswar blocks and some parts of Rasgobindpur block of
Mayurbhanj every year during rainy season causing large scale
devastation in the villages situated on both sides of the river.
The problem is as much a natural phenomena as political. There
had been three committees on the river Subarnarekha for a
planned intervention to put an end to flood and managing its
water for sustainable agriculture and other development but no
substantial measures have been taken so far to solve the
issue.The first committee set up to look in to the permanent
solution to the problems of flood in Suvernarekha was in the
year 1928. Subsequently in the year 1962 and 1965 Janardan
Tripathy Committee in the year 1973 that came up with certain
recommendations on the basis of which a dam on the river was
proposed to be construted at Chandli in earlier Bihar, now in
Jharkhand. Which is supposed to be completed in 2010. Experts
say that even if the Chandili dam comes up the intensity of
flood in the Suvernarekha basisn is not going to be reduced
because of two reasons. One, the quantum of rain water that
flows in to the river in the lower part of chandli dam itself is
so huge that itself causes flood in the downstream particularly
in 6 blocks of Balasore and Mayurbhanj districts. Second, the
safe water carrying capacity at present in the river
suvernarekha at Rajghat is 75,000 cusec per second, where as
during the rainy season and particularly during flood 1.5 to
2.00 cusec water flows in the river. The river bed and the river
mouth have been silted with sand to such an extent that with
minimal water flow flood is being caused.

Every year, people suffer from the same problem; the only change
is in the intensity of the flood. Therefore, the question arises
“why is this recurring flood and suffering caused thereby to
people?” There is no short cut or readymade answer to this
longstanding problem. Some say it lack of political will, some
lethargic attitude of the government system, some people’s lack
of awareness and preparedness and so on. Nothing is whole and
soul reason but they all combinedly form the basis of the
problem. The solution also comes from these quarters and needs a
proper framework for achieving sustainable disaster mitigation
and community development.

Organizational arrangement
This Manch/Sena is not a registered body. However, it certainly
has an operational structure. For the time being, Mr. Sudarsan
Das and Mr. Gobinda Ballava Dalai are coordinating the
activities of the SSS with support from UNNAYAN and in
collaboration with many grassroots CBOs, PRI members and local
well meaning political leaders. The Sena will be having 12-15
volunteers who will be working initially for a period of 2
years. The financial transaction will be done through ‘Unnayan’-
the NGO working in the region and is pioneering the relief and
rehabilitation process in the past as well as in the recent
flood scenario. At present, CYSD and TISS will be helping in
providing financial and technical support to work on short term
and long term basis.

Framework for intervention
Short term intervention
The short term intervention will be looking after the post flood
relief and rehabilitation which is already under way. However,
there is still lot more way to go in this regard. The government
as well as organizations both INGOs and NGOs have started the
intervention. SSS will work closely with them as and when
required apart from some of the direct interventions from CYSD,
OXFAM and TISS at present. The whole idea is to have a
collaborative approach and organized way of doing things in post
flood situation to set up proper delivery mechanism and benefit
the needy.
Priority areas for short term intervention- Temporary shelter,
Health and sanitation, Kharip crop restoration, food security up
to the end of this monsoon.

Long term intervention
Long term intervention includes thee broad areas which are very
much dependent on each other. One is doing a range of study
which will help in developing a master plan for flood control in
the region. The other one is taking up development activities by
closely working with government and reconstruction of damaged
embankments and village roads by using the benefits under NREGS.
The third one is advocacy on the issues that are not being
easily taken care of by government.

Master plan for advocacy
Research
1. Undertaking an independent environmental impact assessment of
the major structural developmental projects in Orissa, including
the Golden Quadrangle Project, using GIS data to show
before-and-after situations.

2. Undertaking a project to develop low-cost housing in
collaboration with the departments of civil engineering, IIT
(Mumbai/Roorkee) to supplement the efforts of the government
under the Indira Awas Yojna.

3. Undertaking an implementation monitoring initiative in
collaboration with CYSD

Capacity building
4. Capacity building of community based organizations/ grassroot
volunteers in post flood rehabilitation and reconstruction and
disaster response.

5. Working with the Special Relief Commisioner’s Office in
evaluating the World Bank project on disaster management that
focuses on 3 areas: building saline embankments along the
cyclone-prone coastline, building cyclone shelters and mangrove
plantation.

Networking
6. Supporting grassroots organizations in invoking the Right to
Information to demand information on utilization of welfare
funds allotted, implementation of the relief operations

7. Establishing linkages at district, state and national levels
to bring together flood response. The organizations that can be
brought together are: Government of India’s disaster management
portals and forums, such as NIDM and NDMA from Delhi, the Orissa
State Disaster Management Authority, civil society organizations
and NGOs such as UNDP and CYSD.

8. Consultation on flood management: ‘Living with floods’ in
which experts from other regions (national and international)
can come and share their models with the Orissa authorities.
Specific structural and non-structural models of flood
preparedness such as groins, pynes, seed and grain banks,
cooperatives, etc. may be presented. The Special Relief
Commissioner has expressed interest in holding such a
consultation.

9. Forming a group to work on low-cost flood-proof rural house
unit, in collaboration with either the department of civil
engineering, IIT Roorkee/Mumbai/Delhi and Indé Design (Mohan Rao),
who have worked on this in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
before.
10. National/Regional-level dialogue on river basin and
catchment area management to prevent flooding over the longer
term.